"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

I have already a Sonoff S20 and a Sonoff Dual, and honestly i do not need either the genuine Basic, neither the clone, there are no place of use currently to me. It will go straight to the bottom of a shelf, after i tested it, i am only curious. I need to know what it is made of.
Merry Christmas!

You mean 3.71$ + Free international shipping vs 4.85$+25$ shipping? Just joking, i know that on ebay original Sonoff basic can be found for 6$ with FREE SHIPPING.. but as i heared a lot of ebay seller sends replacement Powstro models nowadays.

In the meantime i received this "SmartHome" branded item, and when i tear it apart i see that it contains exactly the same hardware as the Powstro Basic. ESP8266-S3 flashed by me immediately, and i played some time.

The pictures at banggood are better.. I do not see other MCU, the relay perhaps directly changed by GPIO0 of the ESP-01?

It looks like a very simple device, so I assume you are right.... anyway, the risk is low (only a few Euro's).

In the meantime this device arrived, sadly it's ESP-01S based on PUYA, but can be flashed with R147. The relay controlled by GPIO0 directly. GPIO2 did not do anything except lightning the ESP-01S blue LED.

In the meantime this device arrived, sadly it's ESP-01S based on PUYA, but can be flashed with R147. The relay controlled by GPIO0 directly. GPIO2 did not do anything except lightning the ESP-01S blue LED.

How did you flash it? I connected the ftdi in the usual manner, crossing tx and rx.
Connected GPIO0 to gnd.
Plugged in and found COM3.
Tried to load R147 4096 using the esptool, but it will not load. (also tried 1024)
What am I missing?

How did you flash it? I connected the ftdi in the usual manner, crossing tx and rx.
Connected GPIO0 to gnd.
Plugged in and found COM3.
Tried to load R147 4096 using the esptool, but it will not load. (also tried 1024)
What am I missing?

I connected it with this way:
Than flashed with R147 1Mb/64k SPIFFS version at DOUT mode with the new Nodemcu PyFlasher application at ttyUSB0 (Linux).

How did you flash it? I connected the ftdi in the usual manner, crossing tx and rx.
Connected GPIO0 to gnd.
Plugged in and found COM3.
Tried to load R147 4096 using the esptool, but it will not load. (also tried 1024)
What am I missing?

I connected it with this way:
Than flashed with R147 1Mb/64k SPIFFS version at DOUT mode with the new Nodemcu PyFlasher application at ttyUSB0 (Linux).

I carefully reconnected following your diagram and ran Py Flasher in DOUT mode, loading R147 1024.
It starts with "Connecting....._____....." but after a while simply stops. No error message, nothing.
Also noticed that the blue LED does not blink, as it usually does on an ESP module during load.

After this I disconnected the wiring and started the unit on 3.3V and Gnd alone, and see the FaryLink AP showing up on Wifi. Looks like nothing was loaded...
Any ideas?

I thought that as well. So I double-checked all connections.
Also, when I start the unit without GPIO0 connected to ground, I can see the blue LED flash twice quickly. When I start the unit with GPIO0 low, it only blinks once. So there definitely is a difference...

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

(John Ruskin)

The long version of the good old German saying "Wer billig kauft, kauft zwei mal", --> If you buy cheap, you buy twice. I concur

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

(John Ruskin)

The long version of the good old German saying "Wer billig kauft, kauft zwei mal", --> If you buy cheap, you buy twice. I concur

You run into a tricky area considering the definition of the word "cheap".
Expensive: a 25000 Euro car that depreciates 40% in the first year.
Cheap: a 35000 Euro car that depreciates 20% in the first year.
I've seen examples of both. My point: price alone does not determine if a product is cheap or expensive.
Especially with the quickly dropping prices of Chinese hardware, it makes sense to keep an eye on new items and check them out.

I've found a very nice looking 27x19x18mm sized ESP8266 module with one relay and one touch button. https://www.ebay.com/itm/ESP8266-WIFI-I ... 1932199168
I currently using Sonoff Touch and Sonoff T1 for Lighting Control, so i do not see any use case for me, but still it is a very compact unit. Maybe for a smart smart 230V extension cable..
But as i see the RX and TX is near the crystal and not an easy task to solder it.